Mini Amsterdam: Christmas boxes – Yet another successful viral

The marketing geniuses at MINI have done it again and slowly, they are becoming the leaders in viral marketing within the automotive industry. Along with …

The marketing geniuses at MINI have done it again and slowly, they are becoming the leaders in viral marketing within the automotive industry. Along with their always funky and fun setups at auto shows, MINI continues to amaze us every few months with some of the most ingenious, unique and simply different marketing campaigns.

During the Christmas holiday, MINI launched a new viral marketing campaign in the old, classy and beautiful Amsterdam. The idea was quite simple, yet very effective and any marketing major here should take some notes.

A large box with a MINI Cooper drawn on it was dropped on the streets of Amsterdam and it seemed to be getting a lot of attention from people passing by it.

Unfortunately doesn’t reveal the content of the box, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see a second part of this video sometimes in the future.

You have hand it to the marketing people for Mini- they simply know what buttons to push…how to keep it lighthearted and very clever. Amsterdam was the perfect European city to pull this off.
The presentation comes off as a small prank, instead of something that tries too hard to be “cool” (and consequently ends up being wanna-be) from a stodgy ad-firm representing a giant corporation.
They made garbage morph into something extremely hip. Best car ad I’ve seen in a loooooong time.

I would think that the box is empty. It is made to look like someone bought a MINI and then threw the packaging in the trash (like you do with consumer electronics or white appliances). The box resembles the ones of IKEA and the tab at the bottom corner says 99 Euro per month, so I think that is the rate for buying a new MINI.

Uhhhm…I’m not sure- “crackhouse just sounds better than reeferhole. But, since the city is, among other wondrous things, an international drug bazaar….meh.
Anyway the mini-box has been busted. It’s been painted pink and there’s all these young drop-out Americans staying in it @ 10 euros per-day. Look for Minibox-cities to begin popping up- stacked one atop the other. They’ll probably get a Pritzker Award for it.